Marissa Alexander, convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for firing a gun over the head of her husband in order to stop physical abuse, has been granted a new trial. The Florida mother was sentenced to 20 years in prison in May 2012. Alexander testified that her then husband Rico Gray physically assaulted her on August 1, 2010, just one week after she gave birth to their baby daughter. She testified that following physical abuse, she escaped to the garage with intentions to leave the house, but the garage door was not working. She retrieved a gun, which she had a permit for, from a vehicle in the garage and reentered the house, where Gray confronted her in the kitchen. Alexander said Gray charged her “in a rage,” and she fired her gun into the air as a warning shot. Alexander was charged with three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon because Gray’s two sons, aged 10 and 12 at the time, were with him in the kitchen when the confrontation took place. Alexander’s former husband whom she has twin boys with, Lincoln Alexander, spoke to theGrio over the summer saying that “Marissa’s spirits are high, and that she is ‘fully aware’ of the Zimmerman verdict, though he declined to elaborate on his or her feelings about it, given that they face the same prosecutor in Marissa’s case.” The prosecutor, Angela Corey, argued Alexander acted on anger, rather than fear. Gray had been arrested twice previously for domestic violence, including one incident against Alexander while she was pregnant.Court documents state that the court remands for a new trial “because the jury instructions on self-defense were erroneous.”UPDATE: The office of State Attorney Angela Corey issued the following statement:

The defendant’s conviction was reversed on a legal technicality. The First District Court of Appeal found that Florida’s Supreme Court’s jury instructions were wrong. We are gratified that the Court affirmed the defendant’s Stand Your Ground ruling. This means the defendant will not have another Stand Your Ground hearing. The case will be back in Circuit Court in the Fourth Judicial Circuit at the appropriate time.

A million things were going through my mind as I drove away and I eventually decided to pull over and park on a side street in order to collect my thoughts. I replayed everything in my mind repeatedly and it all seemed very surreal to me. I was angry with myself for not having taken a more active role in questioning what had been presented to us. I'd like to believe the shock of it all is what suspended my better nature. After what seemed like an eternity, I was able to calm myself enough to make it home. I didn't talk or call anyone that night. The next day back at the office, I was visibly out of it but blamed it on being under the weather. No one else in my department had been invited to the meeting and I felt a sense of guilt for not being able to share what I had witnessed. I thought about contacting the 3 others who wear kicked out of the house but I didn't remember their names and thought that tracking them down would probably bring unwanted attention. I considered speaking out publicly at the risk of losing my job but I realized I’d probably be jeopardizing more than my job and I wasn't willing to risk anything happening to my family. I thought about those men with guns and wondered who they were? I had been told that this was bigger than the music business and all I could do was let my imagination run free. There were no answers and no one to talk to. I tried to do a little bit of research on private prisons but didn’t uncover anything about the music business’ involvement. However, the information I did find confirmed how dangerous this prison business really was. Days turned into weeks and weeks into months. Eventually, it was as if the meeting had never taken place. It all seemed surreal. I became more reclusive and stopped going to any industry events unless professionally obligated to do so. On two occasions, I found myself attending the same function as my former colleague. Both times, our eyes met but nothing more was exchanged. As the months passed, rap music had definitely changed direction. I was never a fan of it but even I could tell the difference. Rap acts that talked about politics or harmless fun were quickly fading away as gangster rap started dominating the airwaves. Only a few months had passed since the meeting but I suspect that the ideas presented that day had been successfully implemented. It was as if the order has been given to all major label executives. The music was climbing the charts and most companies when more than happy to capitalize on it. Each one was churning out their very own gangster rap acts on an assembly line. Everyone bought into it, consumers included. Violence and drug use became a central theme in most rap music. I spoke to a few of my peers in the industry to get their opinions on the new trend but was told repeatedly that it was all about supply and demand. Sadly many of them even expressed that the music reinforced their prejudice of minorities. I officially quit the music business in 1993 but my heart had already left months before. I broke ties with the majority of my peers and removed myself from this thing I had once loved. I took some time off, returned to Europe for a few years, settled out of state, and lived a “quiet” life away from the world of entertainment. As the years passed, I managed to keep my secret, fearful of sharing it with the wrong person but also a little ashamed of not having had the balls to blow the whistle. But as rap got worse, my guilt grew. Fortunately, in the late 90’s, having the internet as a resource which wasn't at my disposal in the early days made it easier for me to investigate what is now labeled the prison industrial complex. Now that I have a greater understanding of how private prisons operate, things make much more sense than they ever have. I see how the criminalization of rap music played a big part in promoting racial stereotypes and misguided so many impressionable young minds into adopting these glorified criminal behaviors which often lead to incarceration. Twenty years of guilt is a heavy load to carry but the least I can do now is to share my story, hoping that fans of rap music realize how they’ve been used for the past 2 decades. Although I plan on remaining anonymous for obvious reasons, my goal now is to get this information out to as many people as possible. Please help me spread the word. Hopefully, others who attended the meeting back in 1991 will be inspired by this and tell their own stories. Most importantly, if only one life has been touched by my story, I pray it makes the weight of my guilt a little more tolerable. Thank you.

Part 1 of 2: From Public Enemy, KRS-ONE, and others to Ice-T and NWA, "What a journey!"

KRS-ONE (Knowledge Reigns Supreme Over Nearly Everyone)

Public Enemy

FROM THAT TO THIS . . . .

I read this article about 6 months ago but was hesitant to blog on it. As a historian, the article is something I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole--it is unverifiable, and lacks corroborating sources. However, I have seen the effects on young people that the change in Rap music has had: the music changed from its more positive, Black conscious expressions of the late 1980s, into the more violent Gangsta rap period that followed. And our youth have been influenced by it and have changed as well. Do YOU think this article has any validity or is it just some conspiracy theory fodder?

Ice T's "6 in the Mornin'" is considered the first Gangsta Rap song

Schoolly D's PSK, is the first Gangsta rap song, according to Ice-T. It inspired his '6 in the Mornin.'

First Gangsta Rap group, Niggas Wit Attitudes (NWA). They put it on the map.

After more than 20 years, I've finally decided to tell the world what I witnessed in 1991, which I believe was one of the biggest turning point in popular music, and ultimately American society. I have struggled for a long time weighing the pros and cons of making this story public as I was reluctant to implicate the individuals who were present that day. So I've simply decided to leave out names and all the details that may risk my personal well being and that of those who were, like me, dragged into something they weren't ready for. Between the late 80's and early 90’s, I was what you may call a “decision maker” with one of the more established company in the music industry. I came from Europe in the early 80’s and quickly established myself in the business. The industry was different back then. Since technology and media weren’t accessible to people like they are today, the industry had more control over the public and had the means to influence them anyway it wanted. This may explain why in early 1991, I was invited to attend a closed door meeting with a small group of music business insiders to discuss rap music’s new direction. Little did I know that we would be asked to participate in one of the most unethical and destructive business practice I’ve ever seen.

The meeting was held at a private residence on the outskirts of Los Angeles. I remember about 25 to 30 people being there, most of them familiar faces. Speaking to those I knew, we joked about the theme of the meeting as many of us did not care for rap music and failed to see the purpose of being invited to a private gathering to discuss its future. Among the attendees was a small group of unfamiliar faces who stayed to themselves and made no attempt to socialize beyond their circle. Based on their behavior and formal appearances, they didn't seem to be in our industry. Our casual chatter was interrupted when we were asked to sign a confidentiality agreement preventing us from publicly discussing the information presented during the meeting. Needless to say, this intrigued and in some cases disturbed many of us. The agreement was only a page long but very clear on the matter and consequences which stated that violating the terms would result in job termination. We asked several people what this meeting was about and the reason for such secrecy but couldn't find anyone who had answers for us. A few people refused to sign and walked out. No one stopped them. I was tempted to follow but curiosity got the best of me. A man who was part of the “unfamiliar” group collected the agreements from us.

Quickly after the meeting began, one of my industry colleagues (who shall remain nameless like everyone else) thanked us for attending. He then gave the floor to a man who only introduced himself by first name and gave no further details about his personal background. I think he was the owner of the residence but it was never confirmed. He briefly praised all of us for the success we had achieved in our industry and congratulated us for being selected as part of this small group of “decision makers”. At this point I begin to feel slightly uncomfortable at the strangeness of this gathering. The subject quickly changed as the speaker went on to tell us that the respective companies we represented had invested in a very profitable industry which could become even more rewarding with our active involvement. He explained that the companies we work for had invested millions into the building of privately owned prisons and that our positions of influence in the music industry would actually impact the profitability of these investments.

I remember many of us in the group immediately looking at each other in confusion. At the time, I didn’t know what a private prison was but I wasn't the only one. Sure enough, someone asked what these prisons were and what any of this had to do with us. We were told that these prisons were built by privately owned companies who received funding from the government based on the number of inmates. The more inmates, the more money the government would pay these prisons. It was also made clear to us that since these prisons are privately owned, as they become publicly traded, we’d be able to buy shares. Most of us were taken back by this. Again, a couple of people asked what this had to do with us. At this point, my industry colleague who had first opened the meeting took the floor again and answered our questions. He told us that since our employers had become silent investors in this prison business, it was now in their interest to make sure that these prisons remained filled. Our job would be to help make this happen by marketing music which promotes criminal behavior, rap being the music of choice. He assured us that this would be a great situation for us because rap music was becoming an increasingly profitable market for our companies, and as employee, we’d also be able to buy personal stocks in these prisons. Immediately, silence came over the room. You could have heard a pin drop. I remember looking around to make sure I wasn't dreaming and saw half of the people with dropped jaws. My daze was interrupted when someone shouted, “Is this a f****** joke?” At this point things became chaotic. Two of the men who were part of the “unfamiliar” group grabbed the man who shouted out and attempted to remove him from the house. A few of us, myself included, tried to intervene. One of them pulled out a gun and we all backed off. They separated us from the crowd and all four of us were escorted outside. My industry colleague who had opened the meeting earlier hurried out to meet us and reminded us that we had signed agreement and would suffer the consequences of speaking about this publicly or even with those who attended the meeting. I asked him why he was involved with something this corrupt and he replied that it was bigger than the music business and nothing we’d want to challenge without risking consequences. We all protested and as he walked back into the house I remember word for word the last thing he said, “It’s out of my hands now. Remember you signed an agreement.” He then closed the door behind him. The men rushed us to our cars and actually watched until we drove off.

Yesterday's attack in Nairobi, Kenya according to Al-Shabaab, an Islamic militant group based in Somalia, who took responsibility for the attack, said it was revenge for Kenya’s military operations in Somalia, which began nearly two years ago. Ali Mohamoud Rage, Al-Shabaab’s spokesman, in a radio address stated that “Kenya will not get peace unless they pull their military out of Somalia.” Al-Shabaab also sent out a barrage of Twitter messages, bragging about the prowess of their fighters and saying the fighters [in the mall] would never give up. Al-Shabaab, who have pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda, used to control large parts of Somalia, where the imposed Islamic fundamentalism in their areas. But Al-Shabaab have increased the operations in Kenya, especially after Kenya sent thousands of troops into Somalia in 2011 to chase them away from its borders and then kept those troops there as part of a larger African Union mission to pacify Somalia. Al-Shabaab have attacked churches in eastern Kenya, mosques in Nairobi and government outposts along the Kenya-Somalia border. But in the past two years, the African Union forces, including the Kenyans, have pushed Al-Shabaab out of most of their strongholds. Until yesterday.

The mall, called Westgate, is a symbol of Kenya’s rising prosperity. It is an upscale five-story building with glass elevators and some of the most expensive shops in town. It is a place for a power where Kenyans can buy expensive cups of frozen yogurt and plates of sushi, a place to catch a movie, or bring your children for ice cream. On Saturdays, it is especially crowded. US officials have long warned that Nairobi’s malls were ripe targets for terrorists, especially Westgate, because a cafe on the ground floor, is owned by Israelis. Ilana Stein, a spokeswoman for Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the attack in fact took place near the ArtCaffe, an Israeli-owned coffee shop and bakery popular with foreigners. Ms. Stein, however, believes that Israelis had not been specifically targeted.

A confidential United Nations security report on Saturday described the attack as “a complex, two-pronged assault” with two squads of gunmen dashing into the mall from different floors at the same time and opening fire. Witnesses described attackers using AK-47 and G-3 assault rifles and throwing grenades. Fred Ngoga Gateretse, an official with the African Union said, “Believe me, these guys were good shooters”. . . . You could tell they were trained.” Several witnesses said the attackers had shouted for Muslims to run away while they picked off other shoppers, executing them one by one. In the end, some 72 people killed, including women and children, and hundreds wounded. Government officials said the wounded ranged in age from 2 to 78. Early Sunday, the government said that the mall’s upper levels had been secured and the gunmen contained in one place. A standoff with the attackers, who were reported to be heavily armed and holding an unknown number of hostages remains unresolved.

A recent incident in the US has put bestiality in the news. A Fort Bragg soldier and his wife have been charged with making pornographic videos with dogs and then posting them online. Ruben and Amber Fox, both 23 years old, were arrested Monday in Raeford, a town just south of the sprawling U.S. Army base in North Carolina. But did you know that 26 out of 50 US states do not have laws banning bestiality. Some of those same states, however, have laws outlawing homosexual practices. Although exact data is hard to come by, but if we use the Internet as an indicator, bestiality is not all that uncommon. The word bestiality appeared in at least 135,885 webpages, according to a recent query on one of the more popular Internet search engines. In addition, a recent study by the Humane Society found more than 8,000 relevant Internet sites -- one claiming more than 46,000 visits per day. Bestiality or zoophilia, sex with animals, may in fact be on the rise. Ancient Rome was a pansexual society—all sexual activities were engaged in. Often, America is considered the modern Rome, and in the area of sexual permissiveness or expression it is catching up. In the past decade same “sexers” have made significant gains in society, particularly the right of matrimony in a number of states. Recently, the American Psychiatric Association considered redefining pederasty (sex with pre-adults between the ages of 12 and 18) as a sexual orientation, a reclassification that it gave same sexers some decades ago. Will bestiality become a sexual orientation one day? Is necrophilia next?P.S. Most of the cases of bestiality involve dogs. Does this give new meaning to the common Western saying, “ A dog is man's best friend?"

In 1914, a white doctor in Detroit initiated divorce proceeding against his wife whom he suspected of being a "closet Negro". At the trial, the Columbia University anthropologist, Professor Franz Boas (1858-1942), was called upon as a race expert. Boas declared: "If this woman has any of the characteristics of the Negro race it would be easy to find them . . . one characteristic that is regarded as reliable is the hair. You can tell by microscopic examination of a cross-section of hair to what race that person belongs."

With this revelation, trichology (the scientific analysis of hair) reached the American public. But what are these differences?

The cross-section of a hair shaft is measured with an instrument called a trichometer. From this you can get measurements for the minimum and maximum diameter of a hair. The minimum measurement is then divided by the maximum and then multiplied by a hundred. This produces an index. A survey of the scientific literature produces the following breakdown:

In the early 1970s, the Czech anthropologist Eugen Strouhal examined pre-dynastic Egyptian skulls at Cambridge University. He sent some samples of the hair to the Institute of Anthropology at Charles University, Prague, to be analyzed. The hair samples were described as varying in texture from "wavy" to "curly" and in colour from "light brown" to "black". Strouhal summarized the results of the analysis:

"The outline of the cross-sections of the hairs was flattened, with indices ranging from 35 to 65. These peculiarities also show the Negroid inference among the Badarians (pre-dynastic Egyptians)."

The term "Negroid influence" suggests intermixture, but as the table suggests this hair is more "Negroid" than the San and the Zulu samples, currently the most Negroid hair in existence!

In another study, hair samples from ten 18th-25th dynasty individuals produced an average index of 51! As far back as 1877, Dr. Pruner-Bey analyzed six ancient Egyptian hair samples. Their average index of 64.4 was similar to the Tasmanians who lie at the periphery of the African-haired populations(1).

A team of Italian anthropologists published their research in the Journal of Human Evolution in 1972 and 1980. They measured two samples consisting of 26 individuals from pre-dynastic, 12th dynasty and 18th dynasty mummies. They produced a mean index of 66.50.

The overall average of all four sets of ancient Egyptian hair samples was 60.02. Sounds familiar . . ., just check the table!

Skull showing a wavier pattern, circa 2400 BC

Since microscopic analysis shows ancient Egyptian hair to be completely African, why does the hair of some mummies the look Caucasoid? Research has given us the answers. Hair is made of keratin protein. Keratin is composed of amino acid chains called polypeptides. In a hair, two such chains are called cross-chain polypeptides. These are held together by disulphide bonds. The bulk of the hair, the source of its strength and curl, is called the cortex. The hair shafts are made of a protective outer layer called the cuticle.

We are informed by Afro Hair - A Salon Book, that chemicals for bleaching, penning and straightening hair must reach the cortex to be effective. For hair to be permed or straightened the disulphide bonds in the cortex must be broken. The anthropologist Daniel Hardy writing in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, tells us that keratin is stable owing to disulphide bonds. However, when hair is exposed to harsh conditions it can lead to oxidation of protein molecules in the cortex, which leads to the alteration of hair texture, such as straightening.

Two British anthropologists, Brothwell and Spearman, have found evidence of cortex keratin oxidation in ancient Egyptian hair. They held that the mummification process was responsible, because of the strong alkaline substance used. This resulted in the yellowing and browning of hair as well as the straightening effect.

This means that visual appearance of the hair on mummies cannot disguise their racial affinities. The presence of blonde and brown hair on ancient Egyptian mummies has nothing to do with their racial identity and everything to do with mummification and the passage of time. As the studies have shown, when you put the evidence under a microscope the truth comes out.

The Hype: Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren said in 2010, “Israel’s ties with the United States are in their worst crisis since 1975 ... a crisis of historic proportions.” Here some more comments concerning this strained US-Israeli relationship.

Author and scholar Dennis Prager concurred, “Most observers, right or left, pro-Israel or anti-Israel, would agree that Israeli-American relations are the worst they have been in memory.”

In the spring of 2011, David Parsons, spokesman for the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, said: “There's a traditional, special relationship between America and Israel that Obama is basically throwing out the window in a sense.”

David Rubin, a U.S.-born Israeli author and expert on the Middle East, put it this way: “President Obama is very harmful for Israel and very dangerous for the future of Judeo-Christian civilization.”

The author and economist Thomas Sowell asserted that Obama's relationship with Israel had been consistent with the president's pattern of “selling out our allies to curry favor with our adversaries.”

Political analyst Charles Krauthammer observed that Obama had “undermined” Israel as a result of either his “genuine antipathy” toward the Jewish state or “the arrogance of a blundering amateur.”

In October 2012, Israeli lawmaker Danny Danon, chairman of Likud’s international outreach branch, said that Obama had “not been a friend of Israel,” and that the President's policies had been “catastrophic.”

The Truth: Despite the above comments, Obama has been a more zealous supporter of Israel than Presidents Bush and Clinton.

Obama provided full financing and technical assistance for Israel’s Iron Dome short-range anti-rocket defense system, which is now protecting those villagers.

Obama provided an additional $70 million to extend the Iron Dome system across southern Israel.

US provides $3 billion in annual military assistance to Israel that the president requests and that Congress routinely approves.

Obama has increased aid to Israel and given it access to the most advanced military equipment, including the latest fighter aircraft.

The US and Israeli intelligences have closely coordination agencies — including the deployment of cyberweapons, as recent news reports have revealed — to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Obama through painstaking diplomacy, persuaded Russia and China to support harsh sanctions on Iran, including an arms embargo and the cancellation of a Russian sale of advanced antiaircraft missiles that would have severely complicated any military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Obama secured European support for what even Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, called “the most severe and strictest sanctions ever imposed on a country.”

Obama has directed the military to prepare options for confronting Iran and has positioned forces in the Persian Gulf to demonstrate his resolve.

Obama has assured Mr. Netanyahu that he will “always have Israel’s back.” Americans who support Israel should take the president at his word.

Obama has been steadfast against efforts to delegitimize Israel in international forums.

Obama has blocked Palestinian attempts to bypass negotiations and achieve United Nations recognition as a member state, a move that would have opened the way to efforts by Israel’s foes to sanction and criminalize its policies.

The Obama administration even vetoed a Security Council resolution on Israeli settlements, a resolution that mirrored the president’s position and that of every American administration since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Ehud Barak, the Israeli Defense Minister, said last year, “I can hardly remember a better period of American support and backing, and Israeli cooperation and similar strategic understanding of events around us,. . . than what we have right now.” Ask any senior Israeli official involved in national security, and he will tell you that the strategic relationship between the United States and Israel has never been stronger than under President Obama.

Most people haven’t heard of him. But you should have. When you see his face or hear his name you should get as sick in your stomach as when you read about Mussolini or Hitler or see one of their pictures. You see, he killed over 10 million people in the Congo. His name is King Leopold II of Belgium. He “owned” the Congo during his reign as the constitutional monarch of Belgium. After several failed colonial attempts in Asia and Africa, he settled on the Congo. He “bought” it and enslaved its people, turning the entire country into his own personal slave plantation. He disguised his “business transactions” as philanthropic and scientific efforts under the banner of the “International African Society”. He used their enslaved labor to extract Congolese resources and services. His reign was enforced through work camps, body mutilations, executions, torture, and his private army. Most of us – I don’t yet know an approximate percentage but I fear its extremely high – aren’t taught about him in school. We don’t hear about him in the media. He’s not part of the widely repeated narrative of oppression (which includes things like the Holocaust during World War II). He’s part of a long history of colonialism, imperialism, slavery and genocide in Africa that would clash with the social construction of the white supremacist narrative in our schools. It doesn’t fit neatly into a capitalist curriculum. Its bad to “say racist things” (sometimes), but quite fine not to talk about genocides in Africa perpetrated by European capitalist monarchs. Mark Twain wrote a satire about Leopold called “King Leopold’s soliloquy; a defense of his Congo rule“, where he mocked the King’s defense of his reign of terror, largely through Leopold’s own words. Its 49 pages long. Mark Twain is a popular author for American public schools. But like most political authors, we will often read some of their least political writings or read them without learning why the author wrote them (Orwell’s Animal Farm for example serves to re-inforce American anti-Socialist propaganda, but Orwell was an anti-capitalist revolutionary of a different kind – this is never pointed out). We can read about Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, but King Leopold’s Soliloquy isn’t on the reading list. This isn’t by accident. Reading lists are created by boards of education in order to prepare students to follow orders and endure boredom well. From the point of view of the Education Department, Africans have no history. When we learn about Africa, we learn about a caricaturized Egypt, about the HIV epidemic (but never its causes), about the surface level effects of the slave trade, and maybe about South African Apartheid (which of course now is long, long over). We also see lots of pictures of starving children on Christian Ministry commercials, we see safaris on animal shows, and we see pictures of deserts in films and movies. But we don’t learn about the Great African War or Leopold’s Reign of Terror during the Congolese Genocide. Nor do we learn about what the United States has done in Iraq and Afghanistan, potentially killing in upwards of 5-7 million people from bombs, sanctions, disease and starvation. Body counts are important. And we don’t count Afghans, Iraqis, or Congolese. There’s a Wikipedia page called “Genocides in History”. The Congolese Genocide isn’t included. The Congo is mentioned though. What’s now called the Democratic Republic of the Congo is listed in reference to the Second Congo War (also called Africa’s World War and the Great War of Africa), where both sides of the multinational conflict hunted down Bambenga and ate them. Cannibalism and slavery are horrendous evils which must be entered into history and talked about for sure, but I couldn’t help thinking whose interests were served when the only mention of the Congo on the page was in reference to multi-national incidents where a tiny minority of people were eating each other (completely devoid of the conditions which created the conflict no less). Stories which support the white supremacist narrative about the subhumanness of people in Africa are allowed to be entered into the records of history. The white guy who turned the Congo into his own personal part-plantation, part-concentration camp, part-Christian ministry and killed 10 to 15 million Conglese people in the process doesn’t make the cut. You see, when you kill ten million Africans, you aren’t called ‘Hitler’. That is, your name doesn’t come to symbolize the living incarnation of evil. Your name and your picture doesn’t produce fear, hatred, and sorrow. Your victims aren’t talked about and your name isn’t remembered. Leopold was just one part of thousands of things that helped construct white supremacy as both an ideological narrative and material reality. Of course I don’t want to pretend that in the Congo he was the source of all evil. He had generals, and foot soldiers, and managers who did his bidding and enforced his laws. It was a system. But this doesn’t negate the need to talk about the individuals who are symbolic of the system. But we don’t even get that. And since it isn’t talked about, what capitalism did to Africa, all the privileges that rich white people gained from the Congolese genocide are hidden. The victims of imperialism are made, like they usually are, invisible.

I must admit that I did not listen to Obama's address at the March on Washington commemoration. (I read it later.) I've really grown tired of hearing him speak. Especially when he speaks to Black folk; he only has one message for us—take personal responsibility. And he has been running this message for nearly 8 years now.When the then-Senator Obama campaigned for the presidency, his most salient message to Black audiences was on our need to accept personal responsibility. On the campaign trail, Mr. Obama frequently returned to the topic of parenting and personal responsibility, particularly for low-income Afrikan American families. At church after church he railed against absentee fathers, saying, “We need fathers to realize that responsibility does not end at conception.” Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, directly addressed this very real issue in the Afrikan American community: whether absent fathers bore responsibility for some of the intractable problems afflicting Afrikan Americans. Mr. Obama noted that “more than half of all black children live in single-parent households,” a number that he said had doubled since his own childhood. Speaking in Texas in February, Mr. Obama told the mostly Black audience to take responsibility for the education and nutrition of their children, and lectured them for feeding their children “cold Popeyes” for breakfast. “I know how hard it is to get kids to eat properly,” Mr. Obama said. “But I also know that folks are letting our children drink eight sodas a day, which some parents do, or, you know, eat a bag of potato chips for lunch. Buy a little desk or put that child at the kitchen table. Watch them do their homework.” As president he has maintained that same messaging. During a recent speech delivered at Morehouse College’s commencement, Obama admonished black men to take care of their families and their communities and told the graduates that despite the lingering legacies of slavery and discrimination, “we’ve got no time for excuses.” Obama also used the occasion to talk about his own life, touching on the fact that he was raised by a single mother and that growing up he sometimes blamed some of his bad choices on society. “Sometimes I wrote off my own failings as just another example of the world trying to keep a black man down. I had a tendency sometimes to make excuses for me not doing the right thing…Nobody cares how tough your upbringing was. Nobody cares if you suffered some discrimination. And moreover, you have to remember that whatever you’ve gone through, it pales in comparison to the hardships previous generations endured — and they overcame them. And if they overcame them, you can overcome them, too.” Obama's speech had some strong and lofty parts, including passages honoring Morehouse graduate Martin Luther King Jr., but his main point was about personal responsibility, the “clean-up-your-act message.” Surprisingly, Michelle Obama, who I often considered more on point and having a more congenial relationship to the Black community, when speaking at the historically Black Bowie State University’s commencement ceremony, she in essence, gave the same message of personal responsibility. She told her audience that the problem with Black youth is that they are “sitting on couches for hours playing video games, watching TV….fantasizing about being a baller or a rapper.” Trevor Coleman, a former speech writer for Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm, has pointed out the inanity of Obama speech on personal responsibility to the "Morehouse men." The cookie-cutter nature of his speeches to Black audience was exposed here. It was the wrong audience, because a Morehouse man more than any other Black college graduate, at least in Afrika America, “is someone who is a leader, who is taught to go out and make a difference in his community.”

Coleman says he’ll find the president’s next commencement speech, scheduled for Friday at the U.S. Naval Academy, particularly instructive. “That will be interesting given the reports of sex harassment in the military,” Coleman said. “Is he going to chide those cadets about addressing the social pathologies in that population?” Of course, when Obama addressed the cadets he made no mention of this controversy that is raging through the US military. Male and female rapes are at record highs in the US military. Other Black folks have noticed this tendency of Obama to chastise us on this issue of personal responsibility. Jesse Jackson Sr. was incensed by what he saw as Obama’s “talking down to black people.” Kevin Powell, an activist based in New York who travels the country encouraging Black men to take responsibility for their lives, said he has no problem with Obama challenging the black community, but . . . .“You also have to challenge the system, just as you challenge the people. It’s not an either/or,” said Powell. Leola Johnson, an associate professor and chair of the Media and Cultural Studies Department at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., said the Obamas’ speeches “are actually not aimed at black people.” She continued, “They’re actually for white people, liberals especially.” Liberal bloggers were brimming with praise for Obama after the Morehouse speech. “It’s the legacy of Daniel Patrick Moynihan and that whole group of white liberals who want to say it’s not just about structural problems that black people aren’t doing well, it’s about their own values.” Obama returned to his personal responsibility theme again at the March on Washington commemoration speech. According to Obama, Black folks lost their way when “legitimate grievances against police brutality tipped into excuse-making for criminal behavior.” Another commentator, Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report (BAR) said that Obama bemoans that, at some unspecified point in the Black struggle the “transformative message of unity and brotherhood was drowned out by the language of recrimination.” According to Ford, Obama puts the onus squarely on Blacks for destroying the promise of racial harmony, when he said: “All of that history is how progress stalled. That's how hope was diverted. It's how our country remained divided.” “What had once been a call for equality of opportunity,” said Obama, “the chance for all Americans to work hard and get ahead, was too often framed as a mere desire for government support, as if we had no agency in our own liberation, as if poverty was an excuse for not raising your child and the bigotry of others was reason to give up on yourself.” No one in their right mind would disagree with the idea that Black people (or any people for that matter) should have a sense of personal responsibility. But talking about personal responsibility devoid of social context can be very misleading. Michelle Alexander has document a new system of Jim Crow in her recent book The New Jim Crow. This was a system that has been put in place by the same forces that were against the civil rights movement. The new Jim Crow has been in effect for nearly thirty years, according to Alexander, and it has impeded Black progress. As a manifestation of white supremacy, which is alive and well in post-racial America, the new Jim Crow has been highly effective. Consequently many of the historical problems in America have remained and continue to resist progressive changes, especially on the state level. The recent rise of “Black on Black” crime is an example of white supremacy at work. Crime is a governmental concern but by focusing on Black-on-Black crime you racialize crime, and rather than address it as a governmental issue, it becomes a Black problem. This implies that either Black folks have to solve it; or it is an inherent problem within the race. These conclusions serve to criminalize Black people to the larger white society and to Blacks themselves. This can then be use to justify “stop and frisk,” racial profiling, and to help build and sustain the prison-industrial complex. In essence, you have blamed the victim.

The grandfather of all these problems Afrikan people face in America, is white supremacy. White supremacy has created a social and intellectual environment that created racism, white privilege, Black inferiority, the post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome, and the Willie Lynch Syndrome. There are so many systemic and psychological problems that mitigate against the development of healthy Black self-esteem and empowerment. And don't you believe that Afrikan people are impervious to mental health disorders. But none of these issues are addressed by the "stop making excuses" or personal responsibility spiels. Obama, like so many conservative politicians is blaming the victim! Never do you hear any funding or programs that will remedy the crises facing Black people in America, like homelessness, unemployment, poverty, quality education, the AIDS epidemic, nutritional deficiencies, or mental health disorders. To refer to these very real issues Black folks are confronted with as making “excuses” or individuals skirting personal responsibility is ridiculous. Shouldn't his administration be fighting to remove some of these inequalities and injustices? Some of the money expended on the US war machine needs to be redirected, re-prioritized, and channeled back into social programs. Heck, the Obama's administration didn't even bring hate crime charges against Zimmerman. What did we get, a speech. President Obama gave us what he does best--a speech.

Though the president reminds us that he is the president for all people, people form constituents--voters-with unique concerns and interests. As Afrikan people we are a politically powerful voting bloc that has many concerns. What has Obama given our bloc. We gave him our vote now where's the quid pro quo. I hope it wasn't our votes for his speeches. That is not enough! Obama the politicians owes us something.

P.S. The White House has become whiter under Obama. Obama is still far behind other administrations in cabinet diversity (Obama 4; Clinton 9 (in 8 years); Bush 6 (in 8 years), in terms of Afrikan Americans). In regards to diversity, Obama like to say his cabinet is diverse. He stated: “So if you think about my first four years, the person who probably had the most influence on my foreign policy was a woman. The people who were in charge of moving forward my most important domestic initiative, health care, were women. The person in charge of our homeland security was a woman. My two appointments to the Supreme Court were women, and 50 percent of my White House staff were women. So I think people should expect that that record will be built upon during the next four years." The problem is that everyone he made reference to was white with the exception of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Sonia Maria Sotomayor. (This doesn't look too good, especially when supposedly Michelle is the first Black woman Barack ever dated!!!)